i just came back from a practice match with a friend. I blame reading this thread for the fact that i dropped a set.

At contact, you shouldn't be thinking about opening up your shoulders or supination. This thread messed with my form. Luckily i recovered by going back to basics and made up for it in the following set.

In my opinion, there is a huge gap between playing tennis and what is discussed in this thread.

P.S. The backhand has nothing to do withe forehand, regardless of where your nipples are.

flat - i am referring to the ball flight.. not just the shoulder line.... shoulder line is 1 contributor to spin, but he is missing the supination part.

anyway it does deserve a separate thread.

bottom line is - the old farts out there are still teaching the backhand version of the hitting 3 balls in a row method.

method can work, but is not optimal for today's equipment.

and let's not sweep everything under the rug of 'fundamentals'... what exactly does that mean.... I have give details on the supination, the finish, the swing path, the pressure points on the fingers......

the devils are in the details... can't have meaningful discussion when people just say oh well, they look close enough lol.

i just came back from a practice match with a friend. I blame reading this thread for the fact that i dropped a set.

At contact, you shouldn't be thinking about opening up your shoulders or supination. This thread messed with my form. Luckily i recovered by going back to basics and made up for it in the following set.

In my opinion, there is a huge gap between playing tennis and what is discussed in this thread.

P.S. The backhand has nothing to do withe forehand, regardless of where your nipples are.

Click to expand...

lol... how much do I owe you for that set

no you don't think about opening up... you think up/across the ball (instead of thru the ball)... and whatever the body wants to do, you let it happen.

I don't know that you can really prove anything with these stats; there's too much they don't say, and of course what applies at the top of the rankings may not mean much for juniors or for rec players. At best the stats describe (very incompletely) what happened in an individual match.

But I do wish it were easier to find stats like this (and not just for individual matches). The paucity of stats in pro tennis is kind of amazing. If I wanted to figure out how many BH errors Federer made per point this year vs. last year, I'd be totally out of luck...

i just came back from a practice match with a friend. I blame reading this thread for the fact that i dropped a set.

At contact, you shouldn't be thinking about opening up your shoulders or supination. This thread messed with my form. Luckily i recovered by going back to basics and made up for it in the following set.

Click to expand...

You probably shouldn't tinker with your bh right before a match!

You can read the best technical advice in the world and still mess up your game if you try to change it in the middle of a match. Save all stroke advice for the ball machine / feeder.

Btw, regarding opening: It's not something everyone should do. If you modeled your bh after Fed or Dimitrov, then opening up probably won't do anything positive. All the parts of the stroke have to work together and a lot of changes won't work in isolation.

the backhand is not like the forehand; when swinging towards the ball you lead with your non-racquet shoulder/arm in the forehand, but you lead with the racquet shoulder/arm during the backhand. that alone makes a significant difference, not to mention the way the joints function.

There is so much more upper body rotation in the forehand before you get to contact. This means that the strokes feel very different even though you end up with the racquet shoulder/arm in front and contact point in front of the body on both strokes.

the backhand is not like the forehand; when swinging towards the ball you lead with your non-racquet shoulder/arm in the forehand, but you lead with the racquet shoulder/arm during the backhand. that alone makes a significant difference, not to mention the way the joints function.

There is so much more upper body rotation in the forehand before you get to contact. This means that the strokes feel very different even though you end up with the racquet shoulder/arm in front and contact point in front of the body on both strokes.

Click to expand...

forget about the leading / trailing shoulder part... the fh and bh are basically mirror image of each other.

measure the degree of turn from the take back, to the point of contact, for both fh and bh, for same height of ball.... the results will be very close.

kinetic chain is the same - hip goes first, creates a stretch in the core, core fires, pulls the arm around.

swing path - this is where the old farts get stuck..... fh it's well accepted to do WW (not the only way, but is one of the better ways).... so why is the bh not doing that?

supination/pronation - on the fh you can't simply pull the butt end... you'd end up with a finish above the shoulder.... there are pressure points in the hand to make the racket face wiping that windshield resulting in a finish with the racket tip pointing down..... on the bh, same thing, there are pressure points to make the racket face wiping clockwise, with the tip pointing down (Dimitrov style).

think for a second.... why does the ww fh have a higher strike zone up to the eye level? because the face is still closed there.

so how to you hit eye level ball with 1hbh? you never see Fed do it, or Almagro do it, or Tommy Robredo do it... why?

why can Wawrinka hit eye level balls?

it's a different swing path.... with the old way, the racket face is already open when it goes above the shoulder level.

the "fundamentals" are similar, but not the same... how different? as different as between the WW fh and the 3 balls in a row fh.

forget about the leading / trailing shoulder part... the fh and bh are basically mirror image of each other.

measure the degree of turn from the take back, to the point of contact, for both fh and bh, for same height of ball.... the results will be very close.

kinetic chain is the same - hip goes first, creates a stretch in the core, core fires, pulls the arm around.

swing path - this is where the old farts get stuck..... fh it's well accepted to do WW (not the only way, but is one of the better ways).... so why is the bh not doing that?

supination/pronation - on the fh you can't simply pull the butt end... you'd end up with a finish above the shoulder.... there are pressure points in the hand to make the racket face wiping that windshield resulting in a finish with the racket tip pointing down..... on the bh, same thing, there are pressure points to make the racket face wiping clockwise, with the tip pointing down (Dimitrov style).

think for a second.... why does the ww fh have a higher strike zone up to the eye level? because the face is still closed there.

so how to you hit eye level ball with 1hbh? you never see Fed do it, or Almagro do it, or Tommy Robredo do it... why?

Click to expand...

Disagree. FH and 1HBH are not the same or mirror images. The backhand is hit with the arm coming across the body. That's a major difference that effects many things right there. Most FH's are hit with a pushing off on the back foot. No so with the 1hbh. Unit turn is similar but the rotation is different between the two. The FH is hit generally while the chest is squarely facing the net. not on the bh. With a fh you can launch off the ground with a hard strike. No launching on the backhands. On many forehands people rotate all the way around. No so on the bh. The one hander is struck with a little more through and there is an across action but no wrist flex and pronation/supination is minimal compared to to even a simple fh.

The kinetic chain is not the same. They both utilize a kinetic chain but they are different with different focus on different areas.

The strike zone is related to the grip, not because it is a 'ww'.

Fed and the others can hit eye level topspin. Even I can hit a hard topspin shot on a ball that's above my head. I'm not facing Nadals but it can be done. In fact I like that shot. You can get a lot of spin brushing up on a high ball. Contact point for a one hander is far out in front which is why it's harder to hit a high ball. The one handers take the high balls early which is a better choice and keeps them aggressive. There's a vid somewhere of fed hitting hard ts shots on very high balls. I'll try to find it.

On a fh you can simply pull the butt. That's exactly what I do. I don't use any arm at all after the takeback until just before contact where I can choose to apply extra force or increase the pronation/deviation if it's not doing what I had set up for in the takeback. My torso pulls my racquet around. During and at the end of the takeback i just position the racquet so the butt is pointed and that's it. All of my finishes are chest height or lower down to waist level.

Yes but I think the kinetic chain is similar but different. On a 1hbh the weight transfer is more linear than a typical atp fh. On the forehand you push up with the back leg. This fires the hip etc etc all the way to the racquet producing an angular momentum going into the ball. On the 1hbh they barely push up at all, it's more of getting the weight moving forward linearly. Most of the one handers don't explode up from their knees. they stay down for the most part. They 'step into the shot'. So on a fh everything is going up and twisting and a 1hbh is more of just putting weight into it with some trunk rotation and they remain set and stable in their footwork. So that involves different firing of muscles involved in the kinetic chain. That's what i'm referring to.

What do you mean exactly by 'change direction' in the fh and which law am i violating?

cheetah you are talking about minucia.. the body is the way it is.. to produce the mirror image racket path, or course there will be lots of differences in body parts.

kinetic chain is the same.

if you only pull the butt, how do you make it change direction....you are violating the newton's law.

Click to expand...

try this.
go grab your racquet and set up in exactly this position. unit turn w/ shoulders turned more than hips (torque) with a very loose arm just rotate your hips at 50% your normal speed and energy using absolutely no arm at all. zero. stop rotating when your chest is facing forward. don't use any arm muscles.

then report back as to what happens and tell me which of the 3 laws are broken.

There is no data to prove old style bh is taught any more than current style. I see 8 years olds at the club with fed style bh's all the time. If you look at any college vid of one handers they all have the modern stroke. Where are they learning it?

search for 'one handed backhand' on to.be ..... the first 5 that showed up all hit the 'old fart' way.... and these are supposedly good coaches, not to mention who knows whats going on at the local clubs lol...... no wonder this shot is dead.

There is no data to prove old style bh is taught any more than current style. I see 8 years olds at the club with fed style bh's all the time. If you look at any college vid of one handers they all have the modern stroke. Where are they learning it?

yank backwards? on what?

Click to expand...

i have said before.... when there is money involved.... aspiring juniors, college guys on scholarships etc.... survival of the fittest works.. and I am sure the best style is being taught (in general).

I am saying most rec people suffer on this shot because they are taught by old farts.

The kinetic chain of a 1hbh and a modern forehand are very different. The typical modern forehand is swung with the weight loaded on the back foot, whereas the typical 1hbh (and closed stance 2hbh) is hit off the front foot.

But there are some similarities between the backhand and the "classic" forehand (i.e., neutral stance, step-then-swing).

The kinetic chain of a 1hbh and a modern forehand are very different. The typical modern forehand is swung with the weight loaded on the back foot, whereas the typical 1hbh (and closed stance 2hbh) is hit off the front foot.

But there are some similarities between the backhand and the "classic" forehand (i.e., neutral stance, step-then-swing).

Click to expand...

i guess my statement caused more confusion than clarification lol.

what i was trying to say is - in order to achieve the racket path like a ww fh, you have the fire the muscles in the same sequence and the same intent.....

there will surely be difference in body parts, simply because of how the body is made.